Monday, 9 March 2015

Arthur Bliss: ABC Television Signature Theme

In 1956 Sir Arthur Bliss was commissioned
to write two short pieces for use on the newly opened ABC Television service.

The first was a Signature Tune
(moderato maestoso) lasting for some 45 seconds and the second was an Interlude
of 1 minute 15 seconds. Both were arranged for orchestra. The contract was signed on 18 May 1956
shortly after the composer had returned from a concert tour of the Soviet
Union. The same year saw the first
performance of his Meditations on a Theme by John Blow, the Edinburgh Overture, work commencing on
the film score to Seven Waves Away starring
Tyrone Power and Mai Zetterling. On 31
March Arthur Bliss’ daughter Karen had married Christopher Sellick.

The first broadcast of the new TV
station was in the Midlands on 5 May 1956 before the contract for the music had
been signed with the composer. Stewart Craggs in his Arthur Bliss: A Bio-bibliography (1988) states that the first
performance of the Signature Tune and Interlude is unknown. The score is still
in manuscript has not been published.

The Signature Tune has been
uploaded to YouTube,
however the Interlude does not appear to be online yet. It is an attractive
piece that certainly would have added some dash to the opening of the day’s
schedule.

About Me

I am well over fifty years old: the end of the run of baby boomers! I was born in Glasgow, moving south to York in the late ‘seventies. I now work in London.
My main interest is British Music from the nineteenth century onwards.
I love the ‘arch-typical’ English countryside – and have always wanted to ‘Go West, Boy’.
A. E. Housman and the ‘Georgian’ poets are a huge influence on my aesthetic. I have spent much of my life looking for the ‘Land of Lost Content’ and only occasionally glimpsed it…somewhere in…???
My recently published work includes essays on Ivor Gurney’s song ‘On Wenlock Edge’ for the Gurney Society Journal, The Music of Marion Scott and a study of Janet Hamilton’s songs for the British Music Society Journal, and the composer Muriel Herbert for the Housman Society.
I have contributed to the journals of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, the Finzi Society, and the Bliss Society, the Berkeley Society, the BMS Newsletter and regular CD reviews for MusicWeb International.